Street poles are widely used to mount a wide range of ancillary equipment such as street name signs, banners, traffic lights, traffic signs, aerials, street lights, and the like.
Many methods of mounting such ancillary equipment to poles are known. The most traditional method is to drill the pole, and insert fasteners through a mounting bracket, or similar and into the pole itself. However, such traditional methods are increasingly frowned upon for three reasons. Firstly, they are time intensive and occupational health and safety standards indicate that the amount of time spent working at an elevated position especially if standing on a ladder, should be kept to an absolute minimum. Secondly, it is necessary to radially position the ancillary equipment with precision. For example, at a V-shaped intersection it is important that street name signs be correctly aligned with the corresponding streets since a misalignment by only a small number of degrees may possibly create confusion in the minds of those unfamiliar with the local territory and seeking to utilise the information contained on the street name sign. Thirdly, drilling a hole in a pole generally exposes the pole to corrosion and rust which can effectively shorten pole life.
Another traditional method of mounting such ancillary equipment is to use a strip of flexible metal, similar in construction to an automotive radiator hose clamp, but suitably enlarged to accommodate the diameter of the pole. However, such fastening arrangements suffer from the difficulty that the ancillary equipment must be held in place by one hand and whilst the clamp is tightened by the other. This is dangerous while working up a ladder since no hand is available to steady the workman and thus a fall is possible, if not probable. Furthermore, once tightened the radial orientation of the ancillary equipment cannot be changed without slacking off the entire arrangement whilst supporting the ancillary equipment, and repeating the entire procedure.
A pole which has in recent years been installed in the downtown area of the City of Sydney, Australia, is described in Australian Patent No. 741,307. This pole is relatively expensive because it provides an elaborate means of attachment which is present whether required or not. The means of attachment is fabricated from shaped metal so as to provide attachments orientated in four predetermined directions, say north, south, east and west. However, this requires the pole itself to be correctly orientated and the radial orientation of the ancillary equipment to be determined in advance. If either the pole is incorrectly orientated, or a new item of ancillary equipment is required to be mounted on the pole in a direction which does not correspond to one of the four predetermined directions, then a very complicated additional bracket is required in order to mount, say, an antenna, having an orientation, say, to the south-east.